In one of my previous blogs I promised to talk a little bit about the project my colleagues and I are working on with the China Youth Development Foundation. Today is a good time to do that as last week has been pretty work-intense which means no time for ‚playing around’ in Beijing J
The China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF), founded in 1989, is a non-profit and non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to promoting the development of Chinese youth in education, science and technology, culture, sports, health, and environmental protection. Project Hope, CYDF’s signature project, provides support for financially challenged rural pupils including children of migrant workers. Some impressive achievements from Project Hope:
- Aided more than 4.9 students with primary, secondary and even colleague education
- Built more than 18.000 Hope Primary Schools
- Trained almost 80.000 teachers at rural primary schools
- Built 22 Hope Hospitals and 507 Hope Clinics
Now to what we are doing: A while ago CYDF has received a huge donation from the Deng Xiaoping family and has established an endowment fund and an award – the Xiaoping Award. The vision of the Xiaoping Award is changing the future by eliminating social problems through feasible technological innovations. The award should inspire young people (under 25 year) in China and abroad to become social innovators by changing the world with science and technology.
Our project is to develop a comprehensive plan for the Xiaoping Award to ‘go global’ – it is the first time that a Chinese-based award such as this one goes global. Here are a few example of what we have been working on:
- Recommendations on a global roll-out strategy and a global name for the award
- Development of award definition, categories and criteria
- Development of end-to-end application process
- Recommendations on how to recruit international jurors and the definition of judgment criteria
- Recommendations on how to attract additional donors for special awards
- Recommendations on functionality and usability of Xiaoping Award website
- Recommendations on job profiles for additional staff that CYDF needs
- Development of international communications and fundraising plan
- Recommendations on Xiaoping Award logo
Let me tell you – it is a great project with wonderful CYDF-colleagues, but it is also quite a bit of work!
CYDF is a great organization with dedicated and committed employees who want to make a difference in people’s – especially in children’s – lives! However, unlike small NGOs that have the agility, flexibility and velocity of start-up companies CYDF is a GIANT! CYDF has more than 70 full-time employees across 15+ different departments, it is managed strictly hierarchical and its decision-making processes are very comprehensive…